Beautifully Broken Jars

Last night I was listening to a good friend of mine give a message on suffering and pain. He spoke from 2 Corinthians 4, and his reminder struck me as beautiful. Look at what Paul wrote:

"7 But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you." - 2 Corinthians 4:7-12

They're called "earthen jars", or jars made of earth. He's speaking very directly of our earthly bodies in the analogy of jars. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think I'd carry treasure around in clay jars. Something just nags at me that withdrawing all my money and putting them in terracotta pots would not end well. But maybe that's the intention. In this scripture, the treasure we have is hope. I mean, look at what all Paul says we may/will go through, so that the hope, the manifestation of Jesus, would be shown?

When I heard "jars of clay", after thinking of the CCM band, I thought of Gideon and his 300 hundred men. You know the story, right? Starts out with a lot of men- Actually, scratch that, he starts out with a lot of doubt and questioning of God. Then after getting that out of the way, he gathers the warriors of Israel. Thousands of fighting men. God speaks and says, "to make my glory known, we're going to cut that number down." Gideon has to be thinking, "I was kinda comfortable having all these guys. We're untrained and outnumbered already," but he does what God says to do. Through various curious methods of elimination (my favorite: "any of you afraid? Go home."), the number gets cut down to around 300 men. Then God arms them. They take clay pots and put torches in them. They surround the enemy camp with their lights dark until the horn is blown and then they smash the jars. Bam, all their light is poured out. The glory of God is made known to the world in the destruction of the jars.

I wonder how many warriors went, "Hmm... Can't we just pull our torch out and shine it? I mean, do we really have to destroy this nice clay jar?" Maybe even thinking, "Hey, I worked hard to make this jar! I could use it to move water, or wine, or oil."

People don't often understand Christians when they deal with suffering and loss. We're grieved. We become saddened and moved. This wasn't how it was supposed to be, after all. But we have a hope. And when we are tested, when our jars are chipped and cracked, our hope shines out. Are in that, darkness runs and hides. As we are tested, His glory shines through. In our death, His life is released. What a beautiful, broken vessel we are, that He can redeem our pain and suffering.